Good morning, everyone. Happy New Year again.
It is, if you will believe me, still Christmas.
Hell yeah. So even though we turned a new calendar page and it is 2025,
some of us are having a very hard time with that.
Some of us are having a hard time grasping the fact that we are a quarter of the way
into the 2000s when those same sums of us feel like Y2K was like a minute ago.
Time is weird. However, in regard to the church calendar, we are still in
Christmas and so you may remember a few weeks ago as we were wrapping up Advent,
I mentioned that though Christmas Day is the 25th of December, the season of
Christmas is the extending 12 days from that and so the season of Christmas
officially ends on January 6th, which this year falls tomorrow on Monday and
that is Epiphany. And it is the day within the church year that we recognize
that the visit of the Magi or the Wisemen to Jesus was the revelation of
Christ to the Gentiles and not just the Jews but that Christ came for all the
world. And so Advent recognizes that hope and peace and joy and love have come.
Christ has come to be the light for all.
Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word. Grant
that this light and kindle in our hearts may shine forth in our own lives. Through
Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you the Father in the unity
of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen. So why do we observe the
church year here? It is not scriptural but it carries us through the narrative
of Scripture. Emily Hunter McGowan says in her book about Christmas, so there's
this really great little series called the Fullness of Time series. I just am
about to start on the Epiphany book but I worked through Advent this year, working
through Christmas because it's not over yet, and we'll go, we'll start with
Epiphany tomorrow. There is one for Lent and Easter and Pentecost as well. But in
her book about Christmas she says that despite the sentimentality surrounding
Christmas, its focus and the focus of the whole liturgical calendar is the triune
God. To give ourselves the observance of the church year is to give ourselves an
education, a formative submersion into the Trinity. So each season reveals
something more of God's truth, goodness, and beauty. And so in Advent and then
Christmas we enter the story of Jesus who came to be God among us here on earth
and to reveal the goodness of the Father to us. Further along in the church year
we observe Lent and Easter, a season of sacrifice, and then because of sacrifice
50 days later we celebrate the event of Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit
was poured out, evidenced as tongues of fire onto those that gathered. The church
year ends the Sunday before Advent, sometime in late November when we
celebrate Christ the King who has reconciled all things and people to
himself and to God. So as I said it's not scriptural, the church year is not
scriptural, but it is the practice of the narrative and the story and immersing
ourselves in the story of Scripture and who the triune God is. It's the narrative
and we are invited to participate in the full oneness of God. So we are starting
a series today on the Trinity, the theological idea that God is not
one-dimensional, that the God of the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures and
Jesus and that the Holy Spirit are all one. And much like the church calendar
there is no explicit identification of the word Trinity in the Bible. Nowhere
does it say that word, however the evidence that Jesus and God the Father
and the Holy Spirit understood themselves to be one is continual throughout. So
let's pray. Jesus thank you so much for the diversity of who you are and the
fact that you invite us into presence with you in your fullness and in your
oneness as God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Spirit. We are grateful that
invitation is for all and so help us say yes to that into the fullness of who you
are, not just part of you but all of you and help us hear from you today. Amen. So
as I said we are in the year 2025 still having a hard time with that but we are
loosely 2,000 years out from the birth of Christ. Roughly the first quarter of
the time of the church in the last 2,000ish years, so 500 years the first
quarter, was the church wrestling over how to understand what the church was,
what to what it was to be in the world, what it was to teach, how to talk about
it, how to meaningfully standardize the way that the church would equip and
disciple believers. A lot of it was amazing, a lot of it was hard, a lot of it
was a lot of quietly faithful people going into all the earth making disciples
and a lot of it was empirical tactics of oppression. It was all of it and
because only a few people wrote some things about God over down over about
God wrote things down about God over time and then others wrote some other
things down in other places at other times and some people felt some of it
was really valid and others didn't and so there were those that had to travel
long distances to meet and discuss and to study and pray to come up with what
the church was meant to be and what believing in Jesus looked like in a
fraught time. What was non-negotiable and what wasn't? Because Jesus did not just
simply go up to heaven and sweep the floor of the place that he said he was
gonna go to prepare for you when he ascended into heaven as I go and prepare
a place for you. He did not just go and make sure that there were clean sheets
on the bed and turn around and decent as the early church expected him to. He as
far as we know has not come back yet and so after a period of time those early
church believers they had to talk about some things. They had to figure some things
out and the idea of the Trinity was key among them. What do we do with these
things? The earliest Christians had to cope with the implications of the
return of Jesus when it was happening or was it for them in their lifetime and of
the presumed presence and power of God among them. The Holy Spirit whose coming
was connected with a celebration of Pentecost, the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit became an interconnected team with Jesus and the community of the
Apostles associated in such New Testament passages as the Great
Commission. Matthew 28 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
and that is the practice we have preserved today. In what we call the
apostolic benediction, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and
the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Second Corinthians 13 13. Thus
the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. It
wasn't something that they could just ignore and be like, oh no, decide what you
want, whatever's good. Because the questions were, was Jesus lesser than the
Father? Was the Holy Spirit lesser than Jesus? Or because the Holy Spirit was
powerful, does it mean that the Holy Spirit is better or carries more weight?
Or I've got the Spirit but you don't have the Spirit so I'm better. Like what
do we do with this? What do we do with God, Yahweh, of the Hebrew Scriptures?
Because now that not just Jews who studied those scriptures and had that
history, but now Gentiles who had the words of Jesus that they were clinging
to and the letters of the Apostles and the addition of the Holy Spirit. They all
had to ask questions. Is one greater than the other or what do we do with all of
this? God said we must worship no other gods but Jesus is God now? Or he said I
am and the Father are one? What a time. So the church was also being widely
dispersed in the early years. The message was going far and it was being absorbed
by an incredibly and wonderfully diverse and truly universal population. It was
like playing a giant game of telephone though. What, how do we keep the true
things true? How do we keep the core things core? How do we keep the stories
faithful and develop a central Orthodox understanding? Do you see why it was so
important for the church to spend so much time wrestling through this? And so
it was not until later in the fourth century that the distinctness of the
three and their unity were brought together in a single Orthodox aligned
doctrine of one essence and three persons. The Council of Nicaea met over
the course of a number of months in what is modern-day Isnik Turkey in the year
325. It developed a creed, a doctrinal statement of Orthodox or aligned belief
among Christians that stated the crucial formula for that doctrine in its
confession that the Son is of the same substance as the Father. Over the next
half century St. Athanasius defended and refined the Nicaean
formula and by the end of the fourth century under the leadership of St.
Basil of Caesarea, I know these names don't feel important but it's good to
hear them every now and then because these were people who committed
themselves. They committed themselves to the trueness of the story that we now
have. And so the doctrine of the Trinity substantially took the form it has
maintained ever since and it is what we say together here every fifth Sunday. We
say this together now. Has anyone ever read the book The Shack before? It is
beautiful and after my dear friend Matt Pottwhite read it he noted that it is a
book about God's relationship with himself. I loved that. That was a great
insight. In Genesis 1 we see an illustration of how to think about this
verse 26 and one says then God said let us make mankind in our image, in our
likeness. The translation choice of us coming from a plural reference as if in
partnership John 1 1 echoes the sentiment of this in the beginning was
the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The creation story of
Genesis 1 shows God creating a world of intricate interdependence. Light
and water are needed to enable plants, birds, fish, and animals to flourish and
all of those are necessary for the existence of human beings. The strata of
existence are related to each other intimately needing each other. But I
would go on to say that the Trinity, in the Trinity God shows that even
themselves aren't outside of that call either. God 3 and 1 shows that even
itself is interdependent. Unlike the gods that have been listed throughout
history, come before in which one supreme God acts as a solitary deity,
angry with others that are trying to vie for its position and often stands at
odds with the others, this is not that. God is in oneness with itself on purpose.
So God in God's oneness shows that even Yahweh is bound by the truth of
interdependence. We see this so clearly and strikingly in Jesus's relationship
with the Father during his time on earth. So even though God as Yahweh is not
explicitly male, God is other. There are a number of references in scripture that
use metaphors and similes that identify God with traits and capacities that are
not strictly one or the other. A hen stretching out its wings for its chicks
to gather under them in safety, laboring to bring forth the birth of something,
these are metaphors and similes offered. But we gain further insight on the idea
of the Trinity when we see God as Jesus understands God. And Jesus refers to God
as Abba, as Father, Dad. And so as the New Testament Church understood the multiple
facets of the one true God, they came to understand God as Jesus knew God. We come
to know God through Jesus. So what do we learn about the Father because of the
Father's unity and oneness with both the Son and the Spirit? In the Gospels, the
Son is unwavering in his recognition that nothing is done without the express
approval and partnership with the Father. Never once does Jesus do something
without tying it to the Father. John 14 7 through 10, if you really know me you
will know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him. Philip
said, Lord show us the Father and that will be enough. And Jesus answered, don't
you know me Philip? Even after I have been among you such a long time, anyone
who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father? Don't you
believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to
you I do not speak on my own authority rather it is the Father living in me who
is doing his work. The baptism in the testimony of John the Baptist affirmed
God's choice in Jesus through the witness of the Spirit. John 1 32, then
John gave this testimony I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove
and remain on him and I myself did not know him, this is John speaking, but the
one who sent me to baptize with water told me the man on whom you see the
Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I
have seen and I testify that this is God's chosen one. Matthew 3 16 and 17 as
soon as Jesus was baptized he went up out of the water and at that moment
heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a
lighting on him and a voice from heaven said this is my son whom I love with him
I am well pleased. And for the entirety the full entirety of Jesus's ministry
life on earth he did not move without the direction of the Father. He did not
move without communion with the Father nor did he move without the public
honoring and acknowledgement of the Father. John 5 16 through 17 the
authority of the Son. So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath
people didn't like it the Jewish leaders began to persecute him in his defense
Jesus said to them my father is always at work to this very day and I too am
working. For this reason they tried all the more to kill him not only because he
was he breaking the Sabbath but he was even calling God his own father making
himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer very truly I say I tell you
the son can do nothing by himself he can only do what he sees the Father doing
because whatever the Father does the son does also for the father loves the son
and shows him all he does. Jesus's life was lived in a way that reflected that
God the Father not only loves us but has compassion towards us that he wants to
restore us to wholeness that he wants to see the oppressor learn to lift others
up that he wants to see us be generous and good to each other because he is
generous and good to us and that God the Father wants to welcome us home with
open arms and even the stories of condemnation and judgment that had been
built up over time through a community a historic community that knew only a God
that came to them through themselves not through the son were confronted in John
8 when Jesus spoke to the woman who had been publicly stoned for being caught in
adultery and Jesus had addressed her accusers where are your accusers didn't
even one of them condemn you no Lord she said and Jesus said neither do I go and
sin no more. John 3 16 for this is how God loved the world he gave his one and
only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal
life God sent his son to the world not to judge the world but to save the world
through him we learn the truth of the father through the son we learn the love
of the father through the son who knew the father we have come to learn about
the father through what Jesus has told us and shown us it is a true vision of
the father and if you are ever ever wondering what the truth of the father
of God is the truth of God the father rather is look to Jesus and Jesus will
tell you who he knows his father to be but we also come to learn about the
father through what the spirit shows and ignites in us in the letters and the
acts that are collected in the New Testament we learn more about God the
father through the spirit John 14 26 says but the advocate the Holy Spirit
whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind
you of everything I have said to you acts 1 5 for John baptized in water but
in a few days you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit and a few days later
just as promised acts 2 1 through 4 when the day of Pentecost came they were all
together in one place and suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind
came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting they saw
what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of
them all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
tongues as the spirit enabled them and so what do we learn about the father
because of the spirit well we continue to grow in God's under in the
understanding of God's love for us Romans 5 5 and this hope will not lead to
disappointment for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the
Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love we also learn that God does not leave us
you may not feel it it may not be evident in your daily life or in moments
that you feel like you need it but you can know you can know you can know the
spirit has come so that we may know that God desires us to never be desires that
we would never be alone whether we are walking through the valley of the shadow
or death or we are experiencing the most fulfilling depth of joy this world can
offer God is with you because the spirit is always with us and that is evidence
that God wants us to know that he does not want us to be alone John 14 16 and
17 I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you
and to be with you forever the spirit of truth quite beautifully the infilling of
the spirit in us will show evidence through fruit as outlined in Galatians
522 but the fruit of the spirit is many of you know this love joy peace patience
kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such
things there is no law those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh
with its passions and desires since we live by the spirit let us keep in step
with the spirit what does this all up us about the father what does the spirit
tell us about the father we recognize that these gifts are endowed to us
because it is the father extending these things of himself to us that we might
share in them we learn how the father gives us good things because God is
generous to us we get to experience love because God is love and so the spirit
gives us love and helps us act and serve and provide that for others we get to
because of the spirit in us that tells us that God is a God of joy because God's
joy is being shared with us God's kindness is being shared with us and as
goodness is being shared with us because of the spirit we learn about the father
because of what we have heard from the spirit and have been filled with by the
spirit and we learn from the spirit that God is not silent but speaks to us there
are so many accounts of the spirit speaking to those in the early church
giving direction guidance affirmation where they needed it because they needed
it the church was new they were just practicing these things that they were
learning they were trying to understand how what what do we do where do we go
from here and the spirit was with them the Holy Spirit said the Holy Spirit
told me to go the spirit confirmed the Holy Spirit told me and what does this
tell me what is the Holy Spirit tell me about God the Father is that he wants to
speak to me and that he will when I need the guidance when I need direction it
will be there and so when the spirit came it came to be a sustaining power
for us for you more broadly the church the spirit came to show and do and be
many things for us and in us but they all came from the Father and so if the
spirit does it the Father is it the spirit came to comfort to teach to lead
to correct to be a conduit of God's supernatural power when needed to empower
the believers with certain gifts to regenerate our minds to convict our
hearts and redirect them when we find that they are out of alignment with the
love of God in this world we learn about the Father through the spirit and I I
have focused on the Father but it's a little hard to figure that out because
when you talk about the Trinity you can't just talk about one can you if
they are in fact three and one you talk about the others but what I want to
really focus on and have us remember today is that as you are walking through
scripture as you are reading it I'm gonna say specifically right now for
this sermon's purpose the New Testament and the the age of the church now that
when you experience the spirit when you experience Jesus when you experience the
spirit in the in scripture and when you read about Jesus in scripture and
experience in your life what is it telling you about the Father because I
think it's the things about the Father that we have gotten the most convoluted
in our minds because we have heard we've believed stories that God is not for us
but he's against us we've heard stories that God is here to judge you and not to
love you that God is not here to welcome you that God is not here to like you
we've believed these stories these stories have been built up over time
haven't they and so if we listen to the words of Jesus and watch the life of
Jesus what does Jesus tell you about the Father it's very different than those
things isn't it what does the Spirit tell you about the Father what is the
evidence of the what is the proof of the Father through the Spirit that's the
true story because the Holy Spirit and Jesus commune with God they always have
they always will you have been invited into that communion so that you may know
the love of the Father the truth of the Father so that you may know the depth of
the love that the Father has for you that he has not condemned you but he is
he's asking you to come home he has brought you home the door is open
there's a place prepared for you that is what we learn about the Father through
the otherness of the Father and so when we look at Jesus when we look at the
Spirit we do not look at them separately we do not think Jesus acts on his own we
do not think that the Spirit acts on its own they act in oneness with the Father
and so what do we learn about the Father what things need to be renewed in our
minds about the Father we look to Jesus and the Spirit and we welcome or rather
we accept the invitation of welcome into communion with them what a joy that we
have that invitation we don't have to wonder we don't even have to look from
the outside we get to be brought in we get to be brought into that when you ask
a child how to describe their parent after the parent has disciplined them
the version of the parent you're gonna get will be a bit fractured you might
hear about the account somewhat correctly as far as the events go but
you won't hear about the motivation of the parent quite properly and I say
this cautiously hear me in the spirit of this message the Old Testament is a lot
of accounting of how a people were experiencing and learning to be
identified with the God that called them out what does it mean to be called gods
they they wouldn't just know it right that's not intuitive it was new when God
made his covenant with Abraham there was going to be a lot of growing pains a lot
of toddling happening by a toddler that's learning that we don't just hit
someone when we have big feelings right was learning the child is gonna tell
perhaps a sincere but a skewed story of the account my wise friend Micah Pollock
an outside viewer of Christianity while watching me learn about and know Jesus
in our freshman year of high school said to me the words kind of mellowed out
once Jesus came on the scene I've never forgot that phrasing I always loved it
Jesus was introducing us to the father he knew and this and that the spirit
knew the spirit was introducing to us to the father that they knew and that was
gonna tell us a more complete story and give it context Jesus helped give some
of that context to me and indeed they did and there has been some growth for
the church and in the people of God and in the fullness of time that Kairos
moment the matured and ready moment that Jesus came he came to tell us more about
the father followed by the spirit who will lead us in all truth of the father
and I will cry about this but I am overwhelmed with how cared for we are in
this display how thoughtfully and lovingly we have brought been brought
into the care and knowledge of the true father that we are not told to figure it
out but that we have been led by loved love and equipped to also enter into
oneness with God and also with each other which then allows me understand
the father through you I understand the father through God's actions in you and
through you through Jesus alive in you and through the spirit alive in you I
learn about the father by how Jesus loves you and how the spirit works in
your life I learn about the father and the truth of who he is because of oneness
with community now because of Jesus that is an amazing amazing thing to be
brought into and this is the hope that we have to share it's not to be hoarded
as we learn and understand the depth of the father we offer it to others in full
truth that is always the point so how do we understand the Trinity I don't know
I'm not so sure we're supposed to it's mysterious God is other as I said God is
other Western thinkers don't have an easy time not trying to nail something
down I I welcome you to just enjoy the mystery of the of the fact that God is
one with itself and has invited you into that and will do good work in you because
of it and will do beautiful work in the world because of it the mystery is okay
you don't have to figure it out to experience it but I will trust the
invitation I've been given to enjoy the communion of it with the triune God and
as it lives it's out itself out in us there are things about God I will not
understand in this life however I am grateful for the words and life of Jesus
and the leading and the wisdom and the empowering of the Holy Spirit to help me
move forward in faithfulness believing that God not only loves me but invites
me into wholeness with him and with others the hope is that it is possible
that Jesus has taken care of everything that needed to be taken care of that the
Holy Spirit will lead me and empower me as it needs to happen and that is the
same for you that is an amazing thing let's pray
Jesus help us hear the truth of the Father through you and specifically if
there are things that have become skewed and even untruthful stories about God the
Father in our minds in our hearts in our bodies would you help us see the truth
of the Father through you by way of the Holy Spirit leading us in wisdom leading
us in truth as we read your words and look at your life the way you lived it
help us observe the absolute truth of the Father through you as you knew him
let us do the same with the Spirit lead us into a better way a better way in the
fullness of truth through oneness with the unity you have with yourself you are
not divided within you are eternally one thank you for the invitation into
experiencing that in you and with you and then as a church thank you for that
that we can be one here as well because of your model of unity we look to you
for all things and we thank you for your truth amen